The clinical spectrum of longitudinal deformation of coronary stents: from a mere angiographic finding to a severe complication.

BACKGROUND Longitudinal deformation of coronary stents has been recently described and seems to be more frequent with certain contemporary stent platforms. Indeed, in order to increase flexibility and deliverability, stent manufacturers have reduced strut thickness and the number of connectors within cells; this could negatively affect other mechanical properties of the device, such as the resistance to longitudinal stress. Moreover, longitudinal deformation has been associated to adverse events, such as stent thrombosis. METHODS We report 3 cases of longitudinal stent deformation observed at our institution. RESULTS The first case was a consequence of postdilatation of the stent with a non-compliant balloon, whereas the other 2 cases involved the treatment of bifurcation lesions. One case was complicated by acute, intraprocedural stent thrombosis; such a dreadful complication, to the best of our knowledge, has not been previously reported. CONCLUSIONS Although longitudinal stent deformation is an infrequent finding, usually not associated with adverse events, at least in the short term, it can sometimes turn into a catastrophic, life-threatening complication. The growing number of reports about this issue in recent years should prompt the operators to carefully select coronary stents, especially when dealing with certain lesion subsets, such as ostial lesions, bifurcations, and long lesions.